It is Such a Quiet Thing to Fall
by Bald as Malak
Summary: Atris has started charting her own path... The slow fall of one who sees herself as a hero, not a villain.


**It is Such a Quiet Thing to Fall…**

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** This is a piece written in response to two requests on Trillian's forums:  
...(a) I've had a jones for an Atris 'fic of some kind. She's such a cool character, yet no 'fic!"  
...(b) ""You all misunderstand the Dark Side. It is not of evil. It is of passion. First I will save the Republic. Then I will show you the true glory to be found in darkness." I wouldn't mind seeing a fic about a character (any character, though I suppose a DS/Exile or DS/Revan would work best) is like that line. (So, character study, I think) Meaning, the character is DS for sure, not a gray, but doesn't consider him/herself evil but rationalizes it like how Alexandra put it in her fic.

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Also, this story refers to a bit of history described in a chapter from my Patterns of Betrayal and Redemption story, more specifically  
Chapter 13 of Part II. There are three things you can do:  
...a. You can just read this and it will all become clear (although you may go, "Huh, where did that come from?").  
...b. You can jump down to the brief synopsis of that chapter that I give at the bottom of this chapter. (Put there to avoid spoilers).  
...c. Or you can go read that chapter, which I will be so bold as to say was pretty good. ;) 

**Either way, enjoy!

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**Big internet thanks to Trillian for the beta and Alexandra for her suggestions and "Atris-ness check"! **

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 1**

Secrets. I love mine. Whether a future historian, a victorious enemy, or another, you will love them too.

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**(Atris) Three years before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

They were waiting for me six months ago, when I arrived at the old irrigation station on Telos. The Handmaidens had been drawn here, sensing somehow that I required them.

Since then, they have served me without question or hesitation, gathering every holocron I could point them towards and killing any who dared venture near our base.

I never asked why they chose me, and they never chose to tell me. When I consider it now, my Force points me to this one sentence: _Sometimes, passion is best served cold.

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 45 **

I'm thinking about love now, and it doesn't seem logical that I should treasure it—along with deceit, hatred, fanaticism, purity—equally with calm, harmony, and truth. When I chose to save Atton, my brother, it was for love. That choice led to my torture, rape, domination, and fall to the dark side. _Surely that example illustrates why_, you might say, _the Jedi have always preached against acting upon impulses and feelings?_

That would seem to make sense, but it's wrong. Despite all that my brother did to me, I still love him and I would not change a thing. That is the nature of love. It just is, and it always will be.

Of course, I hate him too, but I will never tell another that.

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**(Atris) Two and a half years before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

I can feel the dark power emanating from the Sith holocrons, even though my Handmaidens have only just landed on the surface. I leave my personal chambers, and by the time I reach the meeting room, my Echani servants are laying the holocrons on a table for me to view, letting them drop gently from bags I gave them when they left. For the uninitiated, the holocrons are perilous to touch.

I had sent the Handmaidens to retrieve them last month, after I had discovered a reference to them in one of my books. The group that I see before me now has one person fewer than the group that left. I do not ask them where their sister is. They knew the risks of this venture when I proposed it. Saving a galaxy calls for sacrifice.

For my last six months here, and the many years I spent on Dantooine, I have buried myself in the knowledge of the Jedi and found it lacking. There was nothing in it that answered the one crucial question fundamental for understanding the Jedi: why do Jedi sacrifice themselves for the cause, if not because of the passion of their belief in it?

_Perhaps I will find an answer now in the whispers of Sith teachings_, I think as I gaze upon the bubbling, red depths of the scattered pyramids. Luckily, I have the knowledge to protect myself. Besides, I have already endured the worse the universe can inflict. These artifacts of evil hold no peril for me.

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 67**

The Sith would say that altruism is a lie, because all people serve themselves first. They are both right and wrong.

There is a Jedi Master named Hugolo. He used to be a happy man, even when he first started his tenure as Jedi Master on Dantooine. He was always pleasant to his students, and liked to cultivate friends among them. His students would often recount to their envious peers the nights where Hugolo would have them over for dinner. Hugolo, they said, was an excellent cook and, moreover, a masterful storyteller and comedian.

However, to his dismay Master Hugolo discovered that his students weren't doing as well in their tests and, more importantly, that they seemed to lack the toughness that other students seemed to gain from their Masters. Looking into the problem, Hugolo realized that the other Masters were much harder on their pupils, so that those students had to learn how to protect and find answers for themselves.

After that, Hugolo became known as the most strict and demanding Master in the Academy. Soon after, his students became known as the most able survivors of all the graduating classes.

Though Master Hugolo always missed the camaraderie he had enjoyed before with his students, his passion for tough teaching is always renewed when he hears of incidences in which his students overcame challenges unmastered by previous Jedi.

Included among his students are Masters Vrook, Kavar, Vash, and I, four of the last five remaining Jedi Council members still known to be alive.

To serve altruistically, in other words, is still to serve oneself, because to do good, feels good. Acting selflessly meets our needs just as much as the satiation of revenge, love, lust, or hunger does.

Unfortunately, the self-serving nature of selflessness is a paradox best kept hidden. Most people would not understand, because the Jedi have always told them that good is equated with sacrifice, and selfishness with evil. It is another lie used to control our behavior, and one that is not ripe for challenge. Yet.

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**(Atris) Two years before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

When I found the combat training techniques in the Sith holocrons four months ago, I started practicing them every day. I hoped to discover in them the same confidence and insights that Xi Lan and Master Kavar had seemed to gain from their intensive weapons training, but which had always eluded me.

Now, for the first time, I am joining the ritual practice session of my Handmaidens, the one in which they test each other in face-to-face combat. Maybe here, I will finally find what I'm looking for.

I am dressed in the same white clothes that the Handmaidens use. At first, as I stand watching the others duel, I have to suppress my embarrassment. The clothes are much tighter than the ones I'm used to, and so they reveal how thin I am compared to the well-endowed Echani women around me.

But then, unbidden, I remember one day at Xi Lan's pond on Dantooine. I feel again the unexpected desire that stirred in my belly when she stripped and lunged into the water. And the embarrassment that came with my own reluctance to disrobe. She had laughed, gently, as I hesitated there on the bank, wavingme to come in. And then, the moment I need now, I remember the look in her eyes when I had finally divested myself of my clothing. The one now known as the Exile had found me beautiful.

Though that had not been enough for me then, it is more than sufficient now. My shoulders straighten, my eyes lift up from the floor, and I'm ready to take my turn.

Because it is my first time, the Handmaidens choose their weakest sister to face me, the one they call the Last Handmaiden.

"As you are yet untried in combat with us," another of the sisters instructs me, "this combat will take place without weapon, item, or Force use of any kind." She goes on to tell me the other rules of the combat, but all my focus is now on my opponent.

The Last Handmaiden is nervous, I see, and also a bit abashed. I think she is afraid that she will hurt me. I swear to myself then and there that no Handmaiden will ever worry about that again.

Then the match begins and the Last Handmaiden comes at me with a low kick. Nervous despite all my attempts at calm, I step back from it, and again at her next kick. Soon, I'm getting close to the edge of the mat, and if I don't change tactics, I will lose and be humiliated.

Pride, oh my pride will not let that happen. I get angry and the next time she kicks, I jam her incoming leg hard with my foot. She stumbles, surprised by my resistance, and I move in, launching straight punches towards her head, and then upper torso. She blocks them, but now it is she who is moving backwards as I pursue with a flurry of attacks.

Force, it feels good to fight like a true warrior after so many years of being the unskilled one!

She tries to maneuver around me then, tries to slip to one side, but it's almost like I see the move before it happens, and I'm jumping. Her kick passes underneath the legs I've tucked up under my body, and then my right foot darts out and her nose crumples under the impact.

She stumbles backwards then, blood tracing paths of defeat down her lips and onto her pristine practice white outfit.

The sight of the blood streaming from her broken nose pulls me into another memory of Xi Lan, an earlier one in which she is trying to teach me how to fight. That day, she made me lose my temper, the first time that had ever happened. In the brawl that followed, for I can not dignify that thrashing, exchange of brutality a fight, I broke her nose. After that, she bowed before me to signify my victory. Though I had accused her of many dark things at that moment, I had learned my first secret that day, one that I had hid from myself until now.

I like to win.

Coming back to the present, I shift to the Last Handmaiden's left side, changing the angle of my attack while she is still disorientated. My fists slam into the torso she left unprotected after I broke her nose. Her breath rushes out of her, in barks timed to my blows—one, two, three. She is close to the edge of the mat now, and I finish the match lazily, pushing her on to the cold hard floor beyond.

Around me, I feel the colorless approval of the other Handmaidens. The tapestry of red I painted on their sister makes us one family. In this moment, I discover another thing that I will tell no one. I have always longed to be loved, not as a Master or teacher but simply for who I am.

Though the acceptance the Handmaidens give me now is far from sufficient, it helps.

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 102**

To deny passion it like denying the existence of the sun. The only way to deny its presence is to lock oneself away behind walls, so that the offending truth never need be confronted. That is what the Jedi do with their unquestioned Code.

The natives on Cludn'es lived on a small planet close to their system's sun. When their civilization was first born, the planet's surface was uninhabitable, and so they grew within the confines of an underground system of caves and aquifers. Light filtered into those caves through small cracks and holes in the surface, and they called those spots _tyels_, which would roughly translate into stars in our language. Because of the natural shifting of the earth's crust, the _tyels_ frequently change size, disappeared, and grew larger over time.

Whole clerical orders were developed to worship the tyels, and the civilization's culture was organized around periodic blood sacrifices to appease the tyels, in the hope that they would assume a shape and size that would favor the particular cave system in question.

When the first scouting team from the Republic landed on the planet, the Cludn'es people were in the midst of a violent civil war that had already killed off half their population. When the Republic team wandered into the tunnels, the Cludn'es people welcomed them with open arms, especially when the Republic officers helped negotiate a cease fire for the war. That welcome was only warmer when the outsiders started dispensing medications that helped treat an influenza plague that had started among the population.

The priests from the different, formerly warring camps got together to celebrate their newfound peace and to honor their heroes. During that dinner, it occurred to the priests that they knew very little about their saviors, and so they began asking questions about the mysterious, lost cave system from which they believed the Republic officers must have come.

When the Republic team told the Cludn'es priests the truth about their origins, the Cludn'es priests immediately killed them and resumed their war. Because their team stopped reporting back, the Republic decided to wait before sending in another team, preferring to send remote probes instead. Those probes turned up nothing, because the Cludn'es had sealed off every entrance from the surface into their domains.

Ten years later, when the next sentient scouting team arrived, they found that the entire local civilization had died out. In the end, they had preferred to wipe each other rather than change their beliefs about the nature of the universe.

When Jedi and the Sith war they do so not only to gain victory over the other, but to defend each other's totalitarian definition of passion. The Sith focus their passion on personal power, the Jedi on the Code, and both protect the other by denying that other passions have value. And so, the rest of us are stripped of our ability to grow, defend ourselves, or die at our own discretion. The only question left to answer is whether the Jedi or the Sith who will herd the sheep.

When I came to understand this lesson, I realized that I am the last true Jedi—something that neither side will understand. I will no longer defend some antiquated Code nor maneuvering myopically for some meager scraps of power. The cause towards which my passion is directed is freedom for the people of the galaxy.

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**(Atris) One year, seven months before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

I'm walking through the hallways of the Telos Citadel Station. It is the first time in a long time that I have not felt the cold, comforting blanket of Echani servitude. Though I miss their predictable, silent presence, it is thrilling to be walking alone. I feel exposed and vulnerable and it makes me feel alive.

I am clad in a blue and silver shirt and skirt set. They cling tightly to my body, which has filled out somewhat due to my rigid exercise routine. Though the skirt hugs my form as it descends to the floor, my legs sneak out for peeks, courtesy of two long side slits. My hair is also freed, hanging below my neck and swaying, along with my hips, to the song of my anticipation. I have come here to test my new power.

I arrive at the cantina that I have chosen for my laboratory, and with a last look at my appearance in a glass window that protects a nearby advertisement, I enter the cantina and I hear it.

When a newcomer enters a well-used space, there is always that almost impossible to detect gap in the noise, the signal that familiar faces are evaluating a new one. For me, that gap was longer, more easy to notice. Some people were taking their time, liking what they saw.

I sense something unfamiliar, and I realize that I am smiling. Not the soft smile for a friend, or a joke, but a new one, full of the power I feel knowing that others desire me. I walk up to the bar, enjoying the press of eyes as they crawl along my body, seeking entry to the mysteries hinted at but not revealed. Another small part of me cringes, looks to escape, but I ignore it. Its time is past.

"A bottle of Dantooine Flash Fire," I say to the droid bartender as I follow my instincts, inserting myself between two burly human men at the bar.

"That's a lot of drink for a fine-looking lady like yourself," says the man on my left, his voice husky and a little uncertain when I sense he is trying for smooth.

"Oh," I say, my eyes facing to the front, while I roll each word around my tongue like a sip of fine wine, "so you can't handle your liquor then?"

The man to my right laughs, his eyes challenging his newly discovered competitor. "Sador here is intimidated by drink stronger than juma juice, or a lady finer than the local harlots."

The man on my left sputters, his face red, and yet I feel untouched, invulnerable. My time with the Handmaidens has helped me harden the walls around the injuries inflicted by Atton and years of Jedi suppression. Those things that once disturbed me—harsh emotions, foul language, and other relics of passion—now serve only as reminders, pointing to the new strengths I have gained. But I still have one more step to take, one more trial before I am fully healed.

I don't want my experiment to end before its time, in a battle between my would-be suitors. Grabbing the bottle that the bartender has just placed in front of me, I head towards a nearby free table.

"Pay him," I say to the man on the right, and some of his swagger disappears as he frantically digs into his pockets for the money. The other smirks and follows me to the table.

Several hours pass easily after that, as I sip slowly on the Dantooine Fire Flash that the men, who have grown in numbers from two to seven, insist on pouring into my glass anytime it gets empty. My eyes begin to glaze over, but that is an illusion put there by my will. I am Echani, and no alcohol can take away my discipline.

The same can not be said for the other men. Though I have not let them get too drunk, they have consumed enough to have succumbed to the first level of effect from the drink—increased libido. As I look at the seven flushed faces, and the looks of envy that float our way from many other men in the cantina, I surprise myself by almost giggling.

_Either I am getting drunk on this power I'm wielding_ _or am_ _I less immune to the effect of Dantooine Flash Fire than I thought_. Even the taint of self-disgust I was used to ignoring seemed to have gone dormant, at least for the moment. Whatever the reason for my lightheartedness, it is time to change settings.

"I'm leaving," I say, standing up, letting my body accidentally push over my chair so that it crashes onto the floor. My mouth parted slightly, I look each man in the face, my eyes lingering a little like lips at the end of a kiss. "Who else is coming?"

The men stumble over themselves as they affirm their continued participation, and they follow me as I slowly wend my way out of the bar. As we walk, I allow my walking to deviate, occasionally, from the straight and narrow path of the sober. Though my eyes face forward, I can sense the looks that they give each other, the elbows they dig into each others' ribs as they contemplate their shared "conquest."

A few minutes later, we arrive at the room that I rented. I open the door, take a step inside, and then turn around, pretending to wobble a bit before leaning against the its frame uncertainly. At least, I think I'm pretending.

"Well," I say, allowing my words to slur slightly, "thank you for accompanying me to my room. I was afraid that someone might try to accost me in my condition, and that I wouldn't be able to defend myself. That was very noble of you, and I wish you all a good night." Then, I'm turning away from them, stepping inside, my hand reaching towards the button that will close the door.

Like a wave that rumbles into a shoreline, the men rush in, pushing me to the back of the room while one punches the door closed. Their hands are all over me, tearing my skirt along its seams, digging into my shirt, their heavy lips attaching onto whatever bare skin is revealed.

And then, there it is, the anger and fear I've been searching for, seeking to awaken, the ones I had hidden away after my brother desecrated my virgin body, and my soul. As these louts seek to violate me, those buried memories and emotions return in full force and now I totter on the edge of two paths, the flight into denial and further degradation, or the emergence of a new power, annealed in the blazing fires of life's harshest trials.

With my discipline, I push my soul towards acceptance and transformation, and, terribly slowly but within the blink of an eye, a decision is made in my soul. The way of defeat loses its grip on my heart and its fear disappears in a flash, irrevocably consumed. The fury, which has been growing hotter and brighter with each unwanted touch, blazes as it consumes the last vestiges of my long-concealed self-pity. As it feeds, my anger becomes absolute, icy calm.

I fling my attackers away from me in that moment, their bodies tumbling like limp dolls as they scatter to the various corners of the room.

But they are not neophytes, these mercenaries, they are seasoned fighters. Swords and blasters are drawn quickly as they gather themselves, unwilling to let their prey go, and sensing perhaps as well that their lucky night has turned more sour than they could have imagined. Meeting their drawn weapons is a lit lightsaber, its blade light blue, one of the two that Xi Lan left in the Jedi Council chambers upon her exile.

Two men shoot at me with their blasters, perhaps unwilling to believe that they truly face a trained Force user. I deflect their bolts back at them, hitting them in the gut repeatedly as their bodies seem to collapse in slow motion towards the ground. The others, smarter or luckier, rush me with their vibroswords held high.

Knowing that to wait for them in one spot will mean death, I follow my instincts to the right, where I surprise one man by drawing my weapon across his stomach before he can block with his blade. The squelching sound of his entrailsescaping his stomach is drowned out by the electric squealing as my lightsaber slides along the blade of the next man. My blade catches in his guard, and he begins to grin, thinking that he will disarm me, but I beat him to it, using an ancient Sith technique to twist the blade out of his hands instead. Using the Force, I push the released blade into the shoulder of one of the other men, and then kick the knee out of the disarmed man in front of me.

The other three men are trying to surround me now, raining blows down on me. I'm blocking frantically, trying to find an opening to break this circle even as the man at my feet tries to grab my leg. I duck low then, my lightsaber sweeping in a tight circle so that it cuts off the arm that has just gripped my leg. My free hand plucks that arm before it can fall, and flings it at one of my attackers.

He ducks, and the arm barely misses him but the trail of blood from it doesn't. For only a moment, he is blinded, wiping frantically at his eyes while he waves his sword in front of him to ward off any attack. I feint towards him, and one of the men moves, his sword reaching out to block the blow he thought I would direct at his friend. Instead, my blade moves straight for the protector, spearing him through the heart so that he drops down like a stone, instantly dead. Even as his body collapses, I'm jumping over it and then turning to face my last two enemies.

They exchange looks, and then they turn, starting to dash towards the door they had not long ago sought entry into. Before they can take three steps, their heads fall, courtesy of the lightsaber I flung at them.

Three seconds later, I end the life of the two wounded men left alive, one as he hunches over the arm I had severed and the other who is trying to crawl away from me while gathering his spilled intestines.

And now, as I survey the carnage of my room, I know that I can fight in a pitched battle, like those who went to war, and survive, kill like they did. These men will not be missed, I think, not really caring. Killers and would-be rapists, this was a fate that had long awaited them.

I pick up the holovideo recorder that I had hidden in the room, and send the video to TSF Security, along with a complaint about the attack. With a little persuasion, the matter is cleared up the next day.

I am ready to battle for the freedom of the galaxy.

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 134**

When I was a servant of the Order, I had restrained all my inclinations towards passion and love—for books and the discovery of truth, for the art of writing, and for the Exile. All of these I had placed in a lockbox, hidden away so that I could search for the truth without prejudice, and serve the Jedi faithfully.

But it was all a lie.

Answer this if you can. What would lead one such as I to make such painful sacrifices? Commitment to the cause, loyalty to the Masters or the Order, the warm feeling of good that blinds one to self-interest, choose what you will. All of these share one characteristic, passion. Their holder sacrifices everything for the cause of her choice because she is passionate about it.

Accepting that truth, ask yourself this: if the Jedi and the Sith serve their purpose with equal passion, then what truly separates the dark side from the light side?

If you answer that question the way I did, then you will understand why I sought to chart a different course, one directed at saving the galaxy, not at preserving one or the other of the old orders.

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**(Atris) One year before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

I am letting my mind flitter from holocron to holocron, enjoying the shock of moving from light peacefulness to simmering darkness, and back again. Neither touches me now, for I have a new purpose, to set the galaxy free from the Jedi and Sith. My purpose, and so my self, are protected by my discipline which in turn is given strength by the passion I hold for my cause.

My mission is almost complete, thanks to the unthinking enmity that drives the Jedi and Sith to destroy each other without thought or question. Every day, the numbers of my enemies dwindles, and soon the unbending religions that consume the vitality of the galaxy will be gone and the rest of us free to pursue our own destinies.

Though I glory in the upcoming victory, today, like other days, I find that a part of me is disappointed. I have been spending so much effort to prepare myself, but now it seems that I will have no enemy to face. Still, once the Jedi and Sith are gone, it is likely that different challenges and new enemies will emerge.

I think it is likely I will find some new cause to defend.

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 151**

Have you ever imagined what the world would look like without the Jedi and Sith? I think it will be worth finding out.

_What about the Jedi_, you might ask. _Aren't the Jedi_ _worth saving?_ I will tell you here that the answer is "no." The Jedi of my former Order are no better than anyone else. They cut some people down, help others, and do it all unthinking, defending a cause that no one else subscribes to. Why? For some, it is because it feels "right" to follow the Code, though they do not understand its origins or purpose. And then there are all those other Jedi Masters, Knights, and Padawans, who act as directed by their superiors, simply because it makes them feel good to obey. Who could love such ignorant gizkas? As for the few truly in charge, what makes them feel good is maintaining their control. I should know, I used to be one of them.

_Aren't the Jedi_, you might continue,_ still preferable to the Sith?_ It is true that the Sith are despicable worms, but for one reason only. They are so blinded by hatred that they ignore all the other passions that make life worth living: compassion, generosity, love, purpose. Like the Jedi, they are blinded because they do not question what drives them; instead, they follow instructions laid down by those who failed hundreds of years ago. Even worse, they often act like a wounded cannock, consuming their own entrails when wounded.

I do not know what the outcome will be, once they are gone. Perhaps we will thrive, finding new ways of using the Force, governing ourselves, and setting directions for our society. Perhaps we will wither away into obscurity, or be swept away by another power until all that is left of us is the sigh of our name on the lifeless planets left behind.

All those possibilities and many more are the true dimensions of life, and always will be. It's just that now, it's only a few Jedi and the Sith who truly get to match themselves against it.

Don't you want to see what you can do?

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**(Atris) Nine months before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

I am meditating now, letting my awareness follow the whims given me by the Force. Sometimes, I'm moved to let my attention flow through a Sith or Jedi holocron to examine an idea. On other times, I might observe the struggles of the hapless actors on the Telos Space Station, or just stretch my mind out towards space, trying to see how far I can reach or what I might find. Sometimes, I am empty of all desire, bobbing without will in the slow currents of the galaxy.

It is from the desire-less space that I pull myself now, alerted to an intruding anomaly that can not be ignored. It is an echo, I realize, and it is playing across all the Jedi and Sith holocrons arrayed around my room. It is not the movement of some substance—light, sound, feeling. It is instead a momentary, almost illusory absence of all these things, like tiny gaps in the flowing fabric of impressions from the holocrons that constantly caress my senses when I am in my room.

I follow it, and the echo doesn't go away. I spend hours, trying to understand it, and while it is impossible to pin down, the emptiness continues to rustle around the edges of my world like a beast prowling just outside the light of a campfire

I am not willing to give up. I continue my meditations for three days, untilIbegin to understand a bit of its nature. It is an anti-life, if one could say that, from some unknown source or sources that is consuming the raw matter of the galaxy. Emotions, existence, death, music, purpose, all the stuff that composes life is being transformed into unmoving monuments of awesome and terrible beauty.

It is horrifying. Everything that I have worked for over the past years is now, unexpectedly, appallingly (wonderfully, a part of me whispers) threatened. It is from the stultifying, blinded, unthinking sameness of the last thousand years and more that I am trying to rescue the galaxy. I will not win that fight only to have it replaced by something even more dead.

And so, my heart beating fast, I walk as quickly as dignity will allow to the meeting room, where the Handmaidens, once again answering my unconscious call, gather. As I outline the threat and the steps we need to take to discover its origins, I am pleased that my face does not reveal the fear (joy, a part of me whispers) I feel at this new challenge.

It is only later that I will learn that the day I first learned of this power coincided with the death of Kataar.

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**Atris' Diary: Entry 178**

I will fight for the people of the galaxy, but I do not love them. That's another secret I will carry to my grave.

I lost my love for people a long time ago. Maybe I never loved them. They always cry out for deliverance even when the pain they hold is nothing compared to what I carry within me. Have they no backbone, to lift themselves up? Still, I will fight for them, because as a former Master in the Jedi Order, and now the last true Jedi, I must atone for our responsibility in encouraging this behaviour. Trained to be sheep by the Jedi, it is very difficult for them to forge their own destinies. I will push them into worthiness.

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**(Atris) Three months before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

I am sitting at the one table in my room, looking at the notes I have taken during the last two months. They tell me nothing. There is no explanation that the Jedi or Sith can provide that tells me the nature of this new threat.

Once again, like every day since Kataar—and the Jedi Order—were consumed, the echo flits across the holocrons in my room. This time, following some instinct, I sit down, and gather my calm, and leave my mind open, hoping for inspiration. As I sit there, dangerously exposed to the anti-life and other enemies, a soft, not quite husky voice talks into my ear. It is Xi Lan, her voice leaving one of the conversations we had shared on Dantooine when we were still friends.

"The Force," she is saying, "should be treated as a gift, not something to hold and use."

And though her time of Force-inspired wisdom is long past, I listen to her now though I hadn't on that day. I send my mind deep into nothingness, leaving behind all intention or questions, just listening for what insights the Force might choose to send my way. After several hours, nothing has happened, but I am not ready to give up. After resting, I try again.

And again on the next day. And again for five days.

_I should give up this silly nonsense now_, I think, but something drives me to keep trying.

On the seventh day, like always, as I sink deeper and deeper into meditation, the cold hunger of the echo grows stronger, pulling at me, seeking to devour me. As I do each time, I ignore it, anchoring myself to my purpose and discipline. Deeper, the Force tells me this time, deeper, and now I'm going farther than I have ever gone, and then the echo seems to expand, reaching beyond the holocrons until I realize that the whole galaxy is resonating, shivering to its call, its connections undulating, fraying, coming undone.

The problem is much worse than I understood before.

But as I contemplate fleeing, emerging from this perilous perspective where the threat seems overwhelming, I realize there is something very familiar about this echo. _I have felt it before_,_ thoughI did not understood its power then._ I let impressions from the spreading emptiness play across all my senses, hoping that they will awaken memory.

A smell emerges first from the caverns of my mind, an acrid, harsh smell… like burning rock.

_A volcano…? No, something else… I need more._

Next comes a sound I can not mistake, the lighting of a lightsaber… no, two lightsabers!

_Two lightsabers, rock on fire… Two lightsabers burning into stone! But where, why?_

A taste comes next, the acid taste of revenge, and the subsequent bitterness that comes from the realization that revenge brings no relief. And then I know, even as the image of a face floats like a reflection on a pond into my mind.

It was from Xi Lan that I had felt such an echo, on that day when we exiled her. _How_, I ask myself,_ could I not have known this earlier?_ I know the answer, though. It is because I try to keep her out of my mind, though I am not always successful.

That day, in the Jedi Council chambers when Xi Lan had stood before us, the wound in her had been much weaker than the one darting around my chamber now. It had been contained, hidden, and I had not seen the possibility of its devastating power. None of us had.

Now, utilizing new knowledge and abilities, I hold my memories of that day in my mind and compare them with the current threat. It is quickly clear to me that there is another difference between the echoes besides strength.

The emptiness I had seen in Xi Lan had been surrounded by the vibrations of the lives incinerated at Malachor, as if their death wails were condemned to forever circle their doom. This new void I had discovered had no such residues of life.

_And so, does this mean that Xi Lan's wound has changed, or that this echo has another origin?_

There was only one way to find out. I have to find Xi Lan, and draw her to me.

* * *

&. 

**Atris' Diary: Entry 197**

Does it matter who leads? No, not really. There are always the poor, the oppressed, the ones who can't do everything they want to, the one who rule.

In the early days of the Republic, there was a Senator, Demna Jol, a very charismatic woman whom had gained, quite unintentionally, the respect and admiration of the most of the Galactic Senate.

One day, when the Galactic Senate was struggling with yet another budget impasse, the representative from Coruscant proposed something new, that the Senate should elect a Supreme Chancellor to adjudicate disputes and to cast the tie-breaking vote where necessary. The next day, the Demna Jol was elected the first Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

For a while, the Senate worked quite effectively. Jol was able to mediate many of the disputes, and more resolutions were passed in the first two years of her appointment than in the preceding twenty. Many of the best resolutions were introduced by Demna Jol, including acts that promoted trade, ended civil wars, and directed the government to provide housing for all sentient beings within the galaxy. At the end of her two years, Demna Jol, who had been a slave when she was a young girl, introduced a measure that asked the Senate to ban slavery in the Republic. Like her other measures it was easily passed and funds were directed to see it accomplished.

When her period of Supreme Chancellor was evaluated later, the commentators noted that the government measures she had introduced had resulted in almost no net improvement.

Each person ultimately does what they do to create the conditions they desire, and they may be very effective in getting others to follow their direction. But none of that guarantees that the galaxy will respond.

Question this still, do you? Look at Revan. For all his intelligence and the power he once commanded, did the result of the Mandalorian Wars really differ from what it would have been without him? The majority of funds are still being diverted to replace lost fleets in place of lost homes and planets. People are still dying or enslaved to serve the wants of elites. The Jedi and the Sith are still fighting their unending war.

* * *

&. 

**(Atris) Two months before the Exile returned to Republic space.**

After a month of fruitless searching, I have now found Xi Lan. My agents are sending signals to me now, and I watch them with the Force to see what I can discern. I am surprised to see that she is happy. It is her simple crafting, and her young son, that liven her spirit, making the wound she carries, and her lack of the Force, almost irrelevant.

_Here is, without a doubt, the validation of what I have learned. The Jedi contain no wisdom, nor the Sith. Passion for something other than one's own gain, or the gain of a religion, that is the key. _

I watch them for many hours, and I find that I am happy for Xi Lan.

_Does this mean_, I wonder, _that my brother found her?_ But even as I ask the question, I know that he has not.

_Perhaps that was for the best, for Atton is not someone who would be at home in this world of hers. But she will need him soon._

Looking at her now, I believe that the threat I worry about everyday is not coming from Xi Lan. Unfortunately, that truth only increases my need of her. As a former Jedi, and a walking anomaly, she will be an irresistible target for my remaining enemies.

As a Jedi, she will serve to draw out the last of the Sith, who have hunted the rest of my former allies into near extinction. Unlike the few remaining Jedi, though, Xi Lan as she is now will not be able to hide.

And as a wound similar to the terrible power that now challenges my plan, I believe she will draw it out of its hiding place too. Through her, if I can keep her alive long enough, my victory can become complete.

_Still, if she is going to live, she will need allies like my brother._ He has done remarkably well against Force users in the past, and that is due in part to his own latent Force abilities.

_Will he be enough to save her? Unlikely, but this course is still my best choice for saving the galaxy. Besides, Xi Lan has always found others to defend her. Even now, in this alien place that there are those who can not resist coming near her. Let us see who Xi Lan will entice to her side once I flush her out of her haven._

As for my brother, I figure he will be easy to find, likely in one of the places that feature brothels and pazaak tables. And once found, I am sure that I can put him in Xi Lan's way.

* * *

&. 

**Atris' Diary: Entry 211**

_Am I not Sith_, you might ask,_ with all this zealous talk of passion?_

I love history, and the uncovering of forgotten tales. Is that evil? I love secrets, not for the power that they give me, though that is certainly useful at times, but for simple pride. They are puzzles I alone have solved. Is it an evil thing to treasure what one has accomplished or discovered?

I love Xi Lan, though I have never told her or anyone else. She was the first person to show me that one could be human and a Jedi at the same time. So when the Sith kill her, and likely my brother too, I will lose the two people I've ever loved. When they are gone, the part of my heart that can care for another will also wither.

I gain no power from this action, no gain save the satisfaction of saving the universe should I succeed. And yet, our three insignificant sacrifices could mark a new beginning for the rest of sentient life.

Don't my actions then count as "good?"

* * *

&. 

**Atris' Diary, the day that Xi Lan arrived for the first time at the Telos Academy  
**

Atton and Xi Lan are here, how did they find me?

It matters not in the end. I can not let them suspect.

I have instructed my Handmaidens to put Atton in a Force cage. I can not risk him remembering me. I could not tolerate it if he did.

As for Xi Lan, my mind tells me not to see her. I should just arrange for her to leave here as soon as possible, it says, because if I see her, I might lose the resolve I need for my plan.

I can not resist the temptation, though. And really, I should not. After all, am I not fighting to create a galaxy where people like me can be true to their passions?

I wonder what we'll say.

* * *

**A/N: Synopsis of Chapter 13 of Patterns of Betrayal and Redemption**

Essentially, this chapter describes how a Jedi seeks out Atton to tell him something he needs to know to be saved. She arranges for herself to be captured, knowing that she will have to endure Atton's torture before he will believe what she has to tell him. All goes according to plan (well, more or less) and the action reaches a point where Atton is ready to believe what the Jedi has to tell him, because he has already broken her. What the Jedi tells him is that her name is Atris and she is his sister. Then she goes farther, giving Atton a purpose so that he is willing to live with himself: find and protect the Exile. She chooses the Exile out of inspiration rather than because she had planned to do so. Finally, at the end of the chapter, she takes away Atton's memory of her being his sister, so that he can live with himself.

If you find it hard to picture Atris as Atton's sister, well you can just trust me on this, or you can go read the Chapter. All the reasons why it could be so are given there in the story and I stand by the connection 100.

Ciao, BaM


End file.
